Recently I've rediscovered the joys of watching a movie in the morning. You stay awake, you feel like you've *done something* with your day when it's over, and then it's only noon and you've got the whole day ahead of you! (I'm speaking, of course, of weekend days, which start around noon and end around 5 a.m.)

Casablanca is definitely worth watching again, I think. A good "date night" movie. Blade Runner was tough to watch my first time through, but I actually enjoyed watching in more the second and third time - fascinating archetype-type stuff to watch for, especially if you're interested in women-as-sex-object/robot-type archetypes.

I consistently fall asleep trying to watch Fear and Loathing. Also The Royal Tenenbaums, Eyes Wide Shut, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Passion of Anna, and Star Wars films. Now that I've actually seen all the Star Wars films, I don't feel too bad falling asleep through them.

Yeah Tenenbaums is one of those movies that I really want to like in concept, and there are many details that I actually do like in practice, but god$!@#it if I don't fall asleep watching it every time.

I missed about 1/3 of My Dinner, 50 percent of Casablanca, same for Blade Runner and 90 percent of Sunset. I went back and watched all of them when I was less exhausted and found that the blame for the sleep was entirely on me--the movies were great when I was better rested.

omg. yeah it's a BR thing. don't tell me you don't remember the 'tears in the rain soliloquy' either. you can sleep through all of BR, just catch that part and maybe a scene with sean young and you're good.

side note, does soliloquy have a weird spelling or what.

well i can understand it, BR and GF (and GF2) have slow spots fo shizz. it's sort of like the English Patient, which i really like in some ways, but in a lot of ways it really doesn't deliver.

The first time I saw My Dinner with Andre--which is all conversation, like a French film--I found Andre the more interesting of the two. You know, he's always rhapsodizing about things like being buried alive by Rosicrucian performance artists on the banks of the Yangtze and having an epiphanic vision underground (I'm making this up). But the second time I saw the film--or "movie," if you think "film" is pretentious--I found Wally more interesting than Andre. The way he looks for wonder in the mundane--heaven in a wildflower. I identified.

"I mean, is Mount Everest more 'real' than New York? I mean, isn't New York 'real'? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out! I mean...I mean, isn't there just as much 'reality' to be perceived in the cigar store as there is on Mount Everest?"

Blue Velvet is not boring. If you fell asleep, I'm guessing you were just tired. And The African Queen! Didn't you write something about John Collier a few months ago? He wrote the great screenplay for The African Queen.

My Dinner with Andre *is* a French film! In the sense that the director - Louis Malle - was French. By the time of MDwA I think he was mostly making films in the US, or at least for English-speaking audiences. But he did the two great French New Wave classics, The Fire Within and The Lovers in the early 60s.

I fell asleep during Inland Empire. And being a devoted Lynch fan, I drove from Des Moines to Chicago to see a screening because the word at the time was that there would only be a 6-city theatrical release. So I got there in time for a midnight showing, and slept thru more than two-thirds of it. I was awake from the David Lynch Q and A after the film, though, but that seems like a dream.

I don't think I've ever fallen asleep during any movies that I would consider classics. Though there are a few that critics and audiences liked that I wish I'd fallen asleep during. Top of my Wish I'd Fallen Asleep list is Titanic. Also high up there are Sleepless in SeattleThe Big Chill. (I like The Return of the Secaucus Seven, on which The Big Chill may have been based, much better.)

There have been any number of truly average films I wouldn't have minded sleeping through, though the names of most of them aren't coming to mind immediately. As much as possible I try to avoid movies I think will put me to sleep though I don't always guess right.

I really like Blade Runner and Casablanca. I can't imagine falling asleep during The Godfather or Blue Velvet (unless I was maybe just too exhausted to keep my eyes open). Though I don't know if I could handle watching Blue Velvet. I have a pretty high threshold for mayhem, but that movie went over the top for me.

I've never seen My Dinner with Andre -- always figured it would put me to sleep.

Elisa, if you like Logan's Run, another you might find interesting for comparison is THX-1138, an early one directed by George Lucas, with Robert Duvall and Sean Young before either of them had become big stars.

I hadn't been following the backscatter about Blade Runner, and it hadn't occurred to me to wonder if Decker is a replicant. Though it's an intriguing notion. (In the novel the movie was based on, I don't believe he's a replicant, though it was years ago I read the novel and I don't remember it that much.) Interesting notion for a sequel, if ever -- where Decker decides to try and find out if he is in fact a replicant.

I actually don't think I literally fell asleep during either My Dinner with Andre or Blue Velvet -- I think in both cases I tried to watch them with a group of friends in college and within 15 or 20 minutes we all agreed simultaneously to bail. I do think David Lynch can be righteously boring at times, but Mulholland Drive is one of my favorite movies of all time.

Movies I staggered out of in order to vomit: Breaking the Waves and The Blair Witch Project. That shaky hand-held camera...puuaaagh....

Movies I staggered out of because I was horrified: Reservoir Dogs and Natural Born Killers.

A movie I staggered out of because I'd staggered in dead drunk and couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening on the screen: Someone to Love, an obscure probably Henry Jaglom film. Alls I remember is Orson Welles glowering portentously and speaking in a sepulchral voice.

A movie I was tempted to stagger out of because I had a splitting headache but sat through: Prospero's Books.

No, I don't like The Big Chill. The characters seemed (to me) shallow and stereotyped, and the writing seemed (to me) shallow and cliched. I did like a lot of the songs in the soundtrack, though not enough to make it watching the movie.

On the other hand, The Return of the Secaucus Seven had (I felt) sharp funny writing, and the characters all reminded me of people (in some cases friends) I've actually known, and many of the scenes in the movie reminded me of places I've actually been.

I saw Blair Witch on a brutally hot day in midsummer, in a fully-packed theater -- the theater was air-conditioned, but it was an old building (actually on some registry of historic buildings because of its classic art nouveau design) and even with air conditioning the theater was good and warm, though not intolerable.

During the movie the audience was ghastly quiet, no screaming at the scary parts as far as I can remember (though maybe a couple of groans at the slightly gory moments). At the point near the end of the movie, when the two surviving people decide to go into the abandoned-looking shack where the missing person may have disappeared, I heard a woman in the row behind me say (not loud by audibly) "No f***in' way!" and I got a chuckle from that.

I liked Blair Witch all right, though I didn't think it was as great as all of the unbelievable build-up hype made it out to be.

Interesting to think about -- if I could pick a celebrity to be part of my life, who would it be? Over the years my movie star (and TV star) crushes have included Peggy Lipton, Sigourney Weaver (in the first Alien movie), Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Liv Tyler, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. (Also two cartoon characters, but we'll keep this clean.) :)

Though that's maybe not quite what you're talking about. So, at the moment -- maybe Janeane Garofalo or Sarah Silverman.

(This is leaving aside poets and writers, many of whom I would love to know as part of my life.)